2016 was a lot of things for me. It was a year of change, to be sure. Here's a month by month view of 2016! January, The Decision. After taking the previous two months to more fully research and reflect on how I felt about moving abroad again, in January I began earnestly filling out CV's and pursuing the realty of a career in international education. At this point, I was still fairly early in my process, but had already decided if I was given a decent contract and an ample opportunity anywhere, I would take it. After a wonderful first half of the 2015-2016 school year with possibly my most memorable class ever, I realized if I was still as anxiety ridden and unhappy while teaching the BEST class ever, that it was time for a change. At this point, I hadn't told anyone of my plans to look abroad. February, Seek and Find. We had one (and only one) snow day during the 2015-2016 school year and it happened to be the day that my current job was posted on an international teaching board. I was at home in my PJs, drinking coffee and watching the snow fall in the city from my second story apartment, when the link for the HIS job popped up. I clicked on it haphazhardly, expecting to make my way to another site again soon, and instead found myself staying a while. I rely on my intuition far too much, but it played out well for me this time. While I was hoping for a job in Japan, I was open to most countries. China wasn't really on my list, but I found myself impressed with the school's vision and community and on a whim, I submitted an application within the hour. Two days later, I had an interview, and within a week, I had signed a two year contract. How's that for timing?! March, The Telling. For someone who processes externally, I did a pretty decent job of keeping this one to myself. I didn't tell my parents I was looking abroad until I'd been offered the job. The only people who knew I was interviewing were my principal, my mentor, and one of my teammates. March became a month of revealing to family members and friends that I was headed off to explore the world again. Most weren't all that surprised to hear that I was moving overseas again (except for my poor aunts, who thought I was taking them to brunch to let them know I'd met somone and instead found out I was moving to the other side of the globe. Ha!), but everyone was seemingly surprised by China. It was an early indicator for me that there is a disconnect when it comes to Americans having an understanding about life in China. My favorite reactions were from some of the post-retirement crowds. You would have thought I'd said I was moving to the moon. :) April, Telling the Kiddos. I've mentioned before that I loved my class last year. I don't know that I can really put into words why they were so special. Any teacher can tell you that sometimes a group comes along and they are the perfect fit for you. Those were my kids last year. They were the absolute perfect blend of everything: they were silly, insatiably curious, incredibly kindhearted, honest, stinking hilarious, always weloming of one other's differences, and always excited to learn about the world and people. They loved each other and they really knew how to love me. (Not at all their job, but when someone knows how to love you well, it feeds your soul). The relationship I had with that group felt sacred in some ways and being their teacher was an immense honor. I will remember them forever. (And hope to hug some of their little necks when I am in town next week!) ALL THAT TO SAY: I needed to tell them I was moving to China before they heard it from someone else, and I wanted to do it in a way that would be both memorable and lighthearted (because I knew as soon as the conversation went off the grid of the speech I had planned, I would cry.) So I did what good teachers do. I frontloaded a crap ton with Magic Tree House books about China, played up my love of pandas (In which I received no less than 1,000 drawings of pandas, stuffed panda friends, and panda jewelry. Never again!) and whipped up some fortune cookies with a message inside to tell them about my next adventure. ;) (Because if you are taking a person away from a child, you better have something good to give them to distract them for a minute. HA!) Telling them was probably the hardest part of the entire process for me. When you work with kids in certain areas, those kids rely on their teachers heavily and I knew I wasn't ready or prepared for the questions they would have during our conversation. Lucky for ME, my friend Jess knew I was telling them during her plan period and staged a sneak attack to come watch from the back of the room. So if you ever want to see a nerve stricken adult having a tough conversation with 7 year olds wherein she may or may not have cried, it is all on video. HA! May- Going Out Strong. Once I'd worked through the process of telling everyone what my future plans were, it was time to make the most of the time I had left with my students and my friends and family. My favorite part of the end of the year was taking the time to intentionally enjoy every day with my kids. So often, teachers in the US are pressed for time and pressured with test scores, data, meetings, statistics, etc. I wanted to make sure my kids were on par and ready for third grade, but even moreso, I wanted to be sure that we ended our year well together. I spent time creating opportunities for them to remember our year together, including creating a classroom yearbook with photos for each student to keep. We celebrated our last day together with a classroom party, and a Hollywood themed "personality" awards ceremony with a movie and popcorn at the end of the day. I wish I could say that we all held it together until the end of the day, but one of my kids started to cry and then we were all done. I will miss this group so much. June- Sell Everything! June comprised of packing, packing, and more packing. I invited a few students in after the last week of school to help me pack up my classroom library and organize things that were being either packed away or handed off to the next classroom teacher who would replace me. We had a fun day together singing KidzBop songs, ordering in Imo's for lunch, and talking and laughing together. The girls who came in were two of the kiddos who had a strong connection with me, and I think having some extra time together gave all of us a bit more closure. Once my classroom was packed (and if you haven't packed a classroom up at the end of the year, you have NO idea what the reality of most teachers is each year), I moved onto the next exciting journey of beginning to pack and sell everything from my South St. Louis apartment. I stashed away the things I was unsure about and hired a moving company to send it all over to my aunt's basement. Then I created an "open apartment sale" on Craigslist and invited teachers and others in by the masses to purchase or make a deal on items, which helped everything else to get taken away. It was liberating in some ways to see them carrying everything away- helping me to prepare for a new start. July- The Transition Begins My parents came up from Florida in July to help in the process of moving things to my aunt's house and cleaning my apartment from top to bottom. Our family friend Jennifer was a saint in taking car load after car load of things to the goodwill to be donated for us. It was work moving out of that apartment, and I will never forget sitting in my living room surrounded by the last few remnants of things, with my mom, dad, and Jennifer and feeling so very loved in how supportive they were being of this next new chapter in my life. I spent my last few days in St. Louis staying at my aunt's house and making final "goodbye" dates for coffee, lunch, etc. with friends before heading back with my parents to Florida for the rest of the summer. Everything that I would be taking to China would be going with us in the car there. I spent the summer relaxing by the pool, reading, and trying to mentally prepare for this new unknown shift in my life. There was a sliiiiight scare in securing my Chinese visa (it arrived less than 24 hours before my flight departed), but other than that, these were relaxing and happy days with my family. August- Settling. I arrived in Hangzhou at the height of the summer heat and still remember stepping off that plane for the first time trying to catch my breath through all of the humidity that met us. We realized through our new hires WeChat group that 7-8 of us were all arriving on the same international flight from San Francisco, and arranged a meetup at the airport to chat a bit and get to know each other. I connected quickly with Heather, from Missouri, and Brianna, from Florida over a drink at the airport bar. We also met Andy & his wife Jess and Claudia, while waiting for the flight. We arrived in Hangzhou pretty close to midnight and were met by our LS Principal, Russ and US assistant principal, Pat. They helped us grab all 20+ bags and put them on the school bus before heading back to campus. We all live on campus this year, and the admin took time to show us to each of our apartments, which were decked out with sheets, towels, pillows, and enough kitchen and food ware to get us by for the first few days. The rest of August was a blitz of orientation and new teacher training, getting settled in to our apartments with many shopping trips to get settled, dinners out getting to know new colleagues, and my birthday, which fell on the first day of school. My new students all seemed so tiny and cute as first graders, and every day seemed to be an adventure of figuring it all out. I quickly became close friends with my two teammates Brianna and Tanya and felt an instant connection with both of them. I had that good old Annie feeling of, "I think I'm gonna like it here!" September- G20 Summit. We arrived in Hangzhou just as the city was taking on the huge task of hosting this year's G20 Summit. This impacted just about everything our first few weeks at HIS, and we could never quite tell if things were a certain way because it was China or because of the G20 Summit. I can't tell you how many times over the months of August and September we were told, "Oh no, you can't do that until after G20." This included seemingly ridiculous things, like getting bicycle tires repaired and foreigners buying kitchen knives and cutlery for our new apartments. The G20 Summit also impacted all of the national and international school schedules, leading us to have a week long holiday not even 3 weeks after school began for the year. Because we did not yet have all of our paperwork finalized, new hires weren't able to travel internationally yet, so Danielle and Heather and I chose to travel down south for the week to see a new part of China and to experience domestic transportation within China. We opted to take the long train to Kunming, which ended up being an experience in itself (let's just say, this was the trip in which we learned that if you'd like to have a train car all to yourself, that you need to book every bed in the car. Otherwise you will find yourself sharing the space with an entire Chinese family- of 6-10 people). We spent most of the train ride taking turns sitting on the small seats in the hallway. After arriving in Kunming for an evening (and waking up to the sounds of the men in the neighborbood all hacking outside our windows at 6 AM) we moved further south to Dali for the week, where we enjoyed the beautiful views, and seeing some of the more traditional aspects of village life in China. This is a place where many Chinese also holiday, and I learned pretty quickly that if you are a foreigner traveling with not one, but two red-headed friends, that people will want to take your picture. All the time. :) We had a great week traveling and met up with Deb, our school counselor, who was also traveling in Dali for the week. We returned back to school for two more weeks before October holiday arrived the first week of October. October- Moon Festival and Halloween. The first few weeks in Hangzhou felt stagnant as there was never quite the opportunity to get into any real rhythm of life with all of the interruptions to our schedule. My friend Danielle and I both chose to stay in Hangzhou over the October holiday to settle a bit more into our new homes and spend some time shopping for items we had put off purchasing at the beginning of our stay. (Namely, couches, which you can read about in our Ikea adventures, posted here). October holiday is when the Chinese celebrate the Moon Festival, and during this time, nearly every morning children would come into the classroom bringing me freshly made mooncakes or delicately prepared store bought ones by the dozen. The end of the month was my first initiation into how HIS celebrates holidays, and the entire day of Halloween was essentially a school wide party in the Lower School. Every child came to school dressed in Halloween costumes (and no small costumes either. I had children in full astronaut costumes with helmets. Every costume was complete from head to toe). Our morning began with a school wide parade, which parents were invited to. We then took pictures around the school with our parents following us from the back of the school to the front to have photos taken with the school sign. The PAFA organization created a trick or treating maze for each class to visit throughout the school. By the time all of this was over, it was nearly lunch time, and my teammates assured me that, on days like Halloween at HIS, you just give into the chaos. So we spent the afternoon painting bats and making Halloween crafts. Surely, I will never work at another school again where Halloween is SUCH a big, special, celebrated event! November- Getting into a Groove. November was probably my favorite month at HIS. While I may not always appear to be one who ascribes to routine, I have an immense need to have a daily/weekly grind. This was the month when I felt like I was finally getting into a decent groove in my classroom. I had already worked out some kinks and at this point my students were better understanding the routines for our classroom and both Daily 5 and our workshop models were all fully implemented. I still felt like I was reaching for straws sometimes (and will no doubt continue to feel that way at least a smidge until the first year is completely under my belt), but this is the point in the year where I really felt like I was figuring out who my students were as learners. A month without breaks is a good thing. :) It was also the month of Thanksgiving (I'm sure you needed me to tell you that), and we had a great time celebrating with American and non-American friends alike! I was tasked with running the Sunshine Committee in early October (essentially a teacher social club), and we helped in running a few game/movie nights in the fall, and helped Andrea, our Community Relations director, get some things running for our big Thanksgiving Dinner this year. It was great to celebrate and fun to share the tradition with others who aren't from the US/Canada and don't typically celebrate. December- The Whirlwind. December was a whirlwind from beginning to end. We had a very busy month full of assemblies, reports, winter parties, and more! By the time the last day of school came to a close before the holidays, I didn't know whether we were coming or going. I joined the staff band (kind of haphazardly) and somehow got talked into performing at the schoolwide assembly the last day of school before break. We had a great time rewriting the words to, "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and creating it into an HIS version, which was fun. Pat and I took off immediately following the end of the school day and headed to HCMC for a week in Vietnam. We quite possibly had the longest day of travel EVER, purchasing a visa on arrival (which wasn't as easy as the internet made it seem), and arriving at our hotel around 3 AM. We immediately ordered room service (real pho brought to our room in the middle of the night!) and basked in the ability to sleep in and wander the city for coffee the following morning. We let ourselves soak in a massage at our hotel and enjoyed a few days of exploring the temples and street food on the streets. We spent a day out in the Mekong Delta with a guide, and all in all, truly enjoyed our time in beautiful Vietnam. Spending the rest of December at home with my family in Florida, where I look forward to ringing in 2017. Excited to see what else is in store!
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AuthorMichelle is an expat and globetrotter, currently residing in Augsburg, Germany. Originally from the US, she has called Guam, China, and Germany home. Her passions include collecting children's picture books, reading, writing, traveling, and trying to remove coffee stains from freshly cleaned shirts. Archives
February 2022
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